The last dance

Movement in harmony, soul of the dance,
Fashioned to favour  and further romance.
Take to the  floor in a flurry of haste,
Lest the last dying strains pass into waste.
Cherish the moment that ever will be.
Lodged in the core of our joint memory.

Spring

How happily the days are lengthening,
As spring pries open winter's  balefull grip.
What has been dark of night now is bright morn,
And birds that sang concealed flute full in light.

Shy buds assume a confidence they lacked
And paint the trees and shrubs in artful hues,
While lovers learn from nature's urgent way
To reawake what has been plunged in sleep.

Green Flash

"Green Flash of sailor's lore,
What motivates your flame?
Why is it once you came,
And now return no more?"

Thus the legend. What the facts?
Could there be a force which acts?

With sea becalmed beneath a cloudless sky,
A rarity is seen, though none knows why.
To mariners it is the strangest thing
The vaulted dome before their eyes may bring.

Amongst the windblown salts with years afloat
The topic merits comment hour on hour.
So fleetingly evinced when it occurs,
It draws upon itself the deepest doubts.
Is it a phantom, conjured by a mind
Confused and tired as Sun and water meet,
Which, with the sinking of the the solar limb,
Calls forth an intense burst of short-lived green
That seems to hang an instant where the straight
Horizon severs sky from placid sea?

As someone with  a weather watcher's eye,
I have the habit to observe the sky -
So let me briefly say what I have seen
Concerning water jugs and flashes green.

Upon the Cuban shore at close of day
I saw the Sun blink verdantly to sleep
Beneath the resting waters calmly deep
From where I sat in hope to be amazed.
It was a moment so unique in kind
As never can be banished from my mind.
And so it seemed a truth had been confirmed
That could no longer see itself impugned.
And yet, on coming home I met with doubt
When, as I watched my water jug boil up
Where it was standing in a darkenend space,
To my distress I saw that Cuban gleam
Which I had thought a rare exotic gem.
Yet gem it may well be, for all of this,
Since not all jugs produce the same effect.

So keep your eyes alert, should such seem just,
And you may see the Green Flash too, I trust.
 

Image and story

Thank you for the pictures from afar,
Showing how you prosper where you are.
How well you dally there, with Sol supreme
Bringing bounty with his burnished beam!

Handsome hull upon a silken sea,
Moored at leasure where you choose to be,
Till fancy spies an isle of green and white,
And prompts the latent wanderlust to bite.

So, as you sail from  port to port at will,
We share with you the pleasure and the thrill -
Happy faces sunning on the beach,
From where vistas vanish out of reach.
Stately vessels, skimming yachts abound,
Verdant backdrops feature in the round,
And all these gems show how you follow
A path renewed with each new morrow
In which the mariner may choose to stay,
Or else weigh anchor and be underway.

Thus let there always be such splendid days
To pass, when tender  eyes with lovelight gaze.

There must be change

A small town reels in disbelief and pain,
A nation wrestles with an aim that's plain:
To stop more innocents from being slain.

After this portent of a future bleak
In which a violent strength destroys the weak
And helpless, who now crave the cure all seek,

Something must be done, action must ensue,
Or many will be added to the few
In leaving life as none should have to do.

So it is done

I wrote a story that I did not know,
I had no choice, I simply let it flow.
It was a story of a quest for love,
A true companion im my every hour.

It is the story that we all must write,
Though  we may lack the words to tell it whole.
There are so many loves a soul must meet
Before they are conflated at the end.

Fish and bird

Sleek minnow on the river bed,
You do not know how chicks are fed.
Kingfisher parents both must strive
To keep their common brood alive,

So through the day each one will fly
To perch upon a branch and spy
Where you are hanging in the flow,
Then plummet down to strike their blow.

The ever-present past

A moth once setttled, plump and brown, upon my coat
As drizzle in a garden fell so many years ago.
And when, as boy, I chanced to glance and saw her on my chest
Her silent presence brought strange fright that had not touched me as
Her dampened wings were folded when she fluttered down to rest.

Too hastily I brushed her off and saw, as she took flight,
What beauty I had banished by an unconsidered act.
Too soon she vanished midst the ranks of raspberry bushes thick.
Too late and vainly did I seek to catch a moment gone.
How silent was the air around while weightless droplets fell
Upon the dripping leaves through which the ripening berries peeped.

Why does this timeless memory stay with me to this day?
Why will it without doubt retain its  charm and potency? 

What goes around...

The subtle play of light upon a fading garden wall,
The smell of fallen apples lying damp among the grass:
All this has been, is now, and will recur for evermore -
The new perfoms its role as repetition of the old.

The apple and the tree are one as evolution rolls,
No tree without the apple, and no apple without tree:
Stability of change allows succession in its turn,
While novel patterns flicker fleet across a garden wall.

The sea, the boat, adventure call

A far marina sparkles in the Sun,
An absent skipper hastens there to sail,
"Wereda's" patience soon will reap reward
And Trinidad rejoice to see once more
Her stately presence on the Carib Main.

Long months of separation near their end,
The sailor's soul now harkens to the sea,
Whose Siren call as ever draws him off,
Away from happy home, to joy on board.

So does the bond that cannot be undone
Require to be renewed, its strength made good,
Until it can allow love's haven leave
To host the next reunion of true hearts.

Sail away

I

A talented sailor from Houston
Attempted to sail with his boots on.
They filled up with sea
As far as his knee
And sank that poor sailor from Houston.

II

A talented sailor from Houston
Declined to set sail with his boots on.
He found his approach
No storm could encroach,
Which won him renown throughout Houston.

Hogmanay 2012

Again we have surmounted one more year
Of outcomes waning fast or gaining slow
And brought ourselves to where we are more clear
Of which directions point the way to go
To reach a target long of deep desire
Despite obstruction's will to block our path -
For hope will triumph though the fates conspire,
And find recourse to stop misfortune's sway.
When times are dark our fortitude must serve
To take us forward to our longed-for goal.
So count the Old Year's passing and observe
The first day of the New Year start to roll.

Rhyme to order

Now let me write you something just for fun,
So I'll enjoy the doing, you - what's done.
It must be furnished with rich rhyme for you,
For, to your thinking, rhyme's what poets do.
Recalling larks aloft which, as they fly,
Pour melody to Earth from summer sky,
Your poets scribble on the page and bring
To voice a consonance through which words sing
When ordered where they match to make them zing
And utter truth or merely "ting-a-ling".
So here it is, then, fully fledged and done -
Has it attained its aim of giving fun?

On receiving a poet's notebook

You, little book, will serve me as an aid
And be a dear companion on the way
To help me understand how poems are made
And how word after word can sweetly play.

Though small in size, you fill the leading role,
Being a gift that shows a caring heart.
Your mission, first, is aptly to extol
The bonds that hold together those apart

Through circumstance of distance or of time,
Regardless whether willed, or wrought by chance;
While, second, you bring elements to chime
That otherwise would scarce deserve a glance.

So, with your readiness in paying heed,
You bring fruition to creative need.

Possum in the garden

A possum is a seldom one to see
In fading light, snug in a garden tree.
Her habit is to keep remote and shy.
Removed, secluded, from the prying eye.

So why this charming visit by the spa,
When, as she knows, she should be stationed far
Off on a forest branch, where no-one calls,
Or, if they do, retire when darkness falls?

But in the garden, poolside, lights ablaze
Have picked her out where all have turned their gaze.
So now she shines forth in a human scene
And condescends to linger, like a queen,
Till barking undermines her regal poise
And, with disdain, she takes her leave of noise.

She's everywhere!

She comes with wishes from the heart,
Cute Darla of the West,
And we no longer are apart,
Thanks to her joyful zest.

How far the sparkle in her eyes
Releaves the the weather's gloom,
And how the glamour of her guise
Now captivates the room

Where, with her festive merriment,
She twinkles to enchant
And exercises her intent
To woof - for others can't.

Richness shared

Gold ore is rich, and richer once made pure.
Then he who finds such wealth has cause to smile -
Its value is assured and will endure
Though other assets may decline the while.

True love is also based on hidden wealth,
But does not need to be unearthed to shine.
Its worth is not exclusive, won by stealth,
For of its essence love is yours and mine.

Etiquette in ardour

A scorpion must woo his mate with care
And make his play to neutralise the sting
That otherwise she may well bring to bear
And terminate his amatory fling.

Though lacking any weapons on display,
We humans, too, perform a special dance
And, in the rough and tumble of the fray,
We brandish words which further our advance.

The acme of success in this would be
To hear you cry surrender with your smile,
Or that by my demeanour you would see
This plea, which harbours neither feint nor guile:

That you of me should know, and mark it well -
Within me love for none but you can dwell.

Spider woe

Black spider on the wall,
The largest of them all
That we had ever seen,
Or that has ever been.

How rapid was your climb,
With footsteps so sublime
Diminishing the ground
From you to our surround!

Eight legs, it's very clear,
Were good for drawing near.
In bed we had to wait
The outcome of your gait.

Would hairy nemesis
Disturb our night of bliss
Or was there some hope yet
That you might drop the threat?

Such tremblings over chance
You prompted with your dance
But all was put to right
When then you stopped in sight.

No longer did we peep,
But turned instead to sleep,
And by the morning light
You had retired from sight.

Spider on my computer

Oh, tiny spider, junior to a fly,
Marooned within the confines of the screen
Of my computer - what, pray, was the why
That brought you where you never should have been?
Three hours at least you circled round and round
The edge that marked my monitor's extent,
And all the while you laboured in profound
Despair of making good your set intent
To find firm landing on familiar ground.

But when you ventured to the topmost rim
Your legs, a semaphore of hopelessness,
Brought home to me your situation grim
And prompted in me pangs of tenderness.
So then I took you down and set you free
With relish in the change you wrought in me.
I felt revulsion deep within abate
Though yet the total of your legs was eight.